


keep faith

by owlinaminor



Series: keep hold, don’t let go [4]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, M/M, Tom Blake Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26896687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlinaminor/pseuds/owlinaminor
Summary: Will keeps staring, like he needs Tom to remind him that there is still a county, and a town, and cherry jam, and toast to put it on, and a fire to sit and eat it by.Blakefield Kisstober 2020: Day 8, Secret Kisses.
Relationships: Tom Blake/William Schofield
Series: keep hold, don’t let go [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1691131
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57
Collections: Blakefield Kisstober 2020





	keep faith

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to alex and jamie for organizing this prompt fest! i love getting an excuse to write soft blakefield.
> 
> [recommended listening](https://open.spotify.com/track/5sxHl2ut1FnFoqjGxmp3cb?si=lwKKYyveR7eHEL4wrhnpWg)

> August 30, 1917
> 
> _I keep seeing cherry trees. In my dreams, over the ridges, just along the horizon when it’s sunset during a long march and all I want to do is lie down. In the smoke past the trenches. I don’t know what this means. What do you think it means? So many people are dying, Ma, and I thought it was for something, I thought we had a country we were sworn to protect, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I miss you._
> 
> _Next spring, will you think of me, during the harvest? You think of me, and I’ll imagine I’m there._

Tom wakes to silence. The wind whistles through the grass, the world sways softly above his head. The sky is deep gray, like the start of a watercolor painting waiting to be filled in. He leans his head back to see through the slit in the tent, catches a hint of pink in the east.

And then it hits him.

“Will,” he hisses, rolling over. “Will, the rain stopped.”

Will mumbles something incoherent, presses his face against the canvas wall. He’s completely shrouded in his pack, only the smallest tuft of golden hair poking up.

That won’t do. Tom pulls up out of his own pack and gets up on his knees, then leans in as close as he can.

“Will,” he says. “Get up.”

Will blinks at him, owl eyes gray in the shadow of the tent. His hand moves, slowly, pulling down the top of his blanket. It’s funny—Will is always alert when he wakes, the first up for a patrol or to drag Tom to breakfast, insisting he’ll complain later if he doesn’t go now. He’s always sharp, his jacket buttoned and his boots laced tight, and if he smiles at Tom it is quiet, a glance so quick that it would fade under direct sunlight. It’s a privilege to watch him like this: moving slow, adjusting, his eyes scanning the tent and coming back to Tom.

“Get up,” Tom repeats. He does a quick once-over of the rest of the tent—four privates snoring softly—and then ducks in, presses a kiss to Will’s cheek.

Will surges backwards—his head hits the canvas. The tent pushes out around him, then reverts back with a quiet creak. He glares at Tom, now fully alert and rehearsing a lecture for the second they’re outside. Tom stifles a giggle.

“It, uh—it stopped raining,” Tom says.

Will holds his finger to his lips. In the dim light, Tom can just see the callouses lining the top of his palm.

“Okay, yeah, sorry,” Tom whispers. “But let’s go?”

Will nods. He reaches up to smooth down his hair, pushed sideways from its collision with the tent, and Tom wants—to stop him, or guide his hand, maybe, feel the soft prickle of close-cropped hair and the tight warmth of skin beneath.

Tom shakes his head to clear it, then turns to get his own kit in order. He pulls on his jacket, hat, boots, and by the time he’s crouching at the tent entrance, Will is just behind him.

They step out into the field. It’s not raining, but the aftermath of rain hangs heavy, some deep cleanliness in the air that reminds Tom of spring on the farm. The world is all gray, pink at the edges. Like a watercolor, or like a trumpet with a mute on, singing out something mellow. Tom heard a trumpet like that once, at a pub with Joe, the bloke closed his eyes and lifted his horn right to the ceiling and played—something slow, he thinks. Something steady.

Tom heads out towards the edge of camp, and Will follows him. They pass the other sleeping soldiers, the supply compound, the mess tent. The section out between two oak trees that another squadron marked off as a football field, makeshift goals of tied-together jackets lying out in the grass.

They are two paces outside the camp line when Will gets started.

“Tom, you need to be more careful,” he says, his voice tight and tired. “I know, you want—and I do, too, you know I do—but anyone could see us, or hear us, and then we’d be—”

Tom whirls around and crosses the distance. He takes Will’s face in his hands, steps right up in between Will’s legs and kisses him, crashes in, the last week of rain hitting all at once. Will is stiff at first but melts quickly beneath Tom, opening his mouth and tilting his head down for a better angle.

“We’d be what?” Tom says, breathless, when they break.

Will stares at him. “What?”

Tom grins. “Exactly.”

Will rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide the smile seeping in.

Tom reaches down and takes Will’s hand. He brings it to his lips, kisses the callouses at the edge of his palm. “I know,” he says, “we’ve gotta be careful, but I’m being as careful as I can, I swear.”

“Yeah? What do you swear on?” Will asks.

“My ma’s cherry jam.” And, when Will stares at him, Tom adds, “It’s the best in the county, ask anyone in town.”

Will keeps staring, like he needs Tom to remind him that there is still a county, and a town, and cherry jam, and toast to put it on, and a fire to sit and eat it by.

And then he leans in and presses a kiss to the corner of Tom’s mouth, gentle. “Alright,” he says. “You’re being as careful as you can.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

Tom links his fingers with Will’s, then turns around and scans the terrain. There’s a grove of trees, up on an incline to the east, where the grass is long and the sun is starting to peek through the clouds. Tom heads that way, and Will follows. Tom sits at the base of a birch tree, golden petals carpeted at its base. Will sits beside him. Tom inches closer, and then Will does, and then Will’s head is dipping onto Tom’s shoulder.

He could take a nap, Tom thinks. Will never gets enough sleep, he doesn’t really complain about it but Tom sees him rubbing the back of his neck when they go to breakfast, sees him blinking slowly over his coffee. After the war ends, Tom will buy him a bed, one with the softest sheets and pillows stuffed with down. Tom will fix his coffee, and he’ll stir in the sugar and the milk, and he’ll bring it to the bed in a China teacup, just enough for Will to drink in one long go. They’ll go to museums, and to libraries, and to tiny pubs where trumpet players croon out love songs, and maybe they’ll dance, in a quiet corner somewhere, and all the black and brown and red of the world will fade into soft gray.

“How do you do it?” Will says. His breath is warm at the crook of Tom’s neck.

“Do what?” Tom asks, tilting his cheek down into Will’s hair.

“Keep believing.”

Tom shrugs, and feels Will rise and fall along with him. “I don’t know. Guess I’m stupid enough to hold onto it.”

Will shakes himself off, then—sits up and turns to look at Will. His eyes are bluer now, the sky must be growing lighter.

“Then give me some stupid,” he says.

Tom grins. “I’ll do my best.”

He leans back in. Will’s lips are warm, warm enough to last the next hundred weeks of rain.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/owlinaminor) / [tumblr](https://owlinaminor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
